Welcome to my pit stop of the inspiration tour for the EZ Dresden Challenge, presented by the Salt Lake Modern Quilt Guild and Simplicity. I am so excited to share my EZ Dresden finish with you today, it feels like it's been eons since I finished a quilt I could blog about!! I'm calling this quilt Dresden Stairs.

The Dresden Plate is a really classic, uber-traditional block and Darlene Zimmerman designed a fantastic ruler for Simplicity called the EZ Dresden ruler. It's designed for making a dresden plate with petals ranging from as small as 1" tall to as tall as 8", and it can be used in lots of other fun ways. Did you see Lee's Lifesavers quilt? Or Kati's modern baby quilt? Two very different quilts, both built from the same simple ruler. I'm a full-on ruler geek; I love lots of different quilting rulers and this one is no exception.

From the get-go, I wasn't entirely sure what I was going to do for this project, but I started by pulling some fabrics in a color palette I was excited to work with, and cut a bunch of dresden petals from them. I put the petals up on my design wall and moved them around in several different ways before I came up with the idea of creating a stair-step effect with the petals pieced in a straight line.

I really enjoyed working on this quilt, and I especially enjoyed free-motion quilting this quilt. I'm trying to spread my FMQ wings and try things other than just stippling, so for this one, I decided to FMQ in the negative space rather than on the patchwork, to try to emphasize the patchwork. I stitched a continuous line swirl pattern all throughout the negative space, and though at first it was frustrating and made my eyes water from concentrating so hard, it ultimately became a lot of fun once I got the hang of it. I will definitely be FMQ'ing like this again! I used Aurifil 50 wt for this quilt the whole way through, and oh my goodness, it just glides through my machine like butter! The stitching is so smooth, especially during FMQ. Love it!

Be sure to visit Colleen today, too, as she's sharing her EZ Dresden Challenge project! For more details on the challenge, including the amazing prizes and the other blog hop links, visit the Salt Lake Modern Quilt Guild.

And now, for the giveaway! Enter here to win your very own EZ Dresden ruler! There are so many possibilities with this ruler, I highly recommend working with it, it's a lot of fun, and you have plenty of time to cook up your own challenge entry before the project link-up gets underway in September. To enter, simply leave a comment here, and the winner will be announced on Wednesday, June 14th. Good luck!

For more inspiration and ideas for the EZ Dresden Challenge, follow along with the blog hop:

Wow, I love your quilt! It's so fresh and colorful! I really want this ruler now that I've been following this blog hop -- who knew there were so many different ways to use it?!? Thanks for the chance to win.

Such a great quilt! Love that you did something different than a circle. Love this hop and getting to see so many great projects by so many talented folks! Thanks for the inspiration and a great tutorial.

I love the quilt and the colors are beautiful...I like the FMQ you did, was that on a longarm or traditional sewing machine? It is so interesting to see all of the different ways the quilters are using the dresden ruler...

Reading through the blog hop, I'm beginning to wrap my head around this ruler a little bit more, and understanding all the possibilites with just one ruler. You all have made it so approachable too, so kudos!

Good for you for branching out with your FMQing, and it's good to hear that you felt it improved as you went along. That's exactly what happens when you keep quilting! I too love to quilt with 50-wt Aurifil. I buy it by the jumbo cones in white, ivory and gray, so I only need to buy again every five years or so. Great stuff. And this is a great giveaway too. Thanks for the chance to win!

Tutorials

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